


Red Moon Rising

by razielim



Series: Merry Smutmas 2017 [16]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Rituals, Biting, Come Inflation, Dubious Consent, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mating Rituals, Ritual Sex, Werewolf ish Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-11 19:24:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/razielim/pseuds/razielim
Summary: Merry Smutmas, wingedauthor!Shiro had overcome the bulk of his trauma and flashbacks. He felt in control of his own mind and body at all times. But one glimpse of that moon, red light drowning his vision, and he was gone once more. He turned and walked down the hall with a singular purpose.





	Red Moon Rising

The moon seemed to flare and flicker in Shiro’s vision, like the red glow of a cat’s eyes in the semi-dark — there one moment and gone the next.

Except the sensation didn’t last just one moment, it dragged out for minutes, and he just stood there, one hand spread on the plyocarbonate window, completely entranced. He didn’t know that his mind wasn’t all there anymore, hadn’t caught the moment when it slipped.

The crimson, pockmarked sphere glowed against the dark backdrop of space and whispered seductive things to him.

Shiro turned and followed his nose.

He saw Coran, but Coran was neither the scent he was following nor a threat. He let Coran pass. Coran said something, and Shiro didn’t answer.

Shiro wasn’t certain what he was searching for.

Lots of scents mingled in the hallways of the castle, but he was following just one in particular. Something that was faint but clean and bright, reminding Shiro of effortless power and high class. Something that mingled with premium paltoleum engine grease.

If he could stop to think, he would have realized that he normally wasn’t so discerning of smells.

But he could only think of the scent.

Shiro realized the scent was “a someone” when he picked up on the unmistakable notes of body soap in the bouquet he was trailing, but he couldn’t think of who it might be. Usually the only soap smell he noticed was Lance’s. Whenever Lance walked into any room, he was followed by a flowering train of friedel, sompelmouss, or one of the other exotic fruits Coran said had been popular perfume ingredients when the castle had been built.

This one…

Shiro breathed deeply at a crossroads in the hallway.

The scent had been trailed everywhere, but… perhaps it was freshest to the left. He turned and kept on it. Whoever used this soap had much more refined taste than the sweet, citrusy notes Lance preferred. The soap he was following was like the Altean answer to cedarwood.

Maybe he should have paid more attention when Coran had given his impromptu lecture on the common scent families of Altean flora.

The scent was heavily mixed with the intoxicating smell of exertion in this hallway.

Shiro was passing the training rooms, and he closed his eyes, trusting his feet to find their way, gulping down lungfuls of his mate’s sweat.

He was looking for _his mate_.

Shiro ran through the list of who it could be. Not Coran, evidently. He’d eliminated Lance, and he didn’t want to consider Pidge. Of the others, Keith would be his first assumption, but the paltoleum smell didn’t fit. Keith didn’t work with engines or generators unless he was the last person available for it. Hunk would be most likely to work with engine grease, but none of the Altean machinery used it. Paltoleum was a Galra component, something Shiro remembered from faint memories of enslavement. Perhaps Keith had come into contact with it on a mission with Kolivan? Perhaps his mate was Kolivan himself, though that thought excited him so little that he was sure it was incorrect. Could Allura be the mate he sought? That would be strange, considering.

The scent suddenly turned fresh and sharp as he turned a corner, and the musk of it featured more prominently. His mate gave off irrefutably masculine base notes, layered with an orchestra of woody and ethereal.

So certainly not Allura either.

He’d never sniffed Kolivan, but he was certain the Galra’s odor was much too bottom-heavy to match this one.

No, this one was…

Shiro licked his lips and breathed in more deeply, remembering finally to open his eyes and finding himself in a completely different part of the castle from the training rooms.

He was hard. So hard.

He imagined breeding his mate on sight and winced at how tight his pants felt.

Shiro was glad he got to seek his mate across the whole ship instead of immediately finding him. Getting worked up to such a state — letting his olfactory glands prime his body for the deed — it was part of the fun.

Then he was there, outside a room.

Some of the alliance, the spies and manipulators among them, used this room to pore over holograms of maps and seized documents, to debate strategies of intelligence gathering and obfuscation. Shiro hadn’t taken interest in participating, such minute calculations and precision missions outside his area of expertise.

He walked in.

Kolivan and Lotor were leaning over a counter, arguing, some piece of arcane technology between them.

“Leave.”

They turned to him — Kolivan disbelieving, Lotor bemused. Shiro leveled his stare upon Kolivan as he walked into the room at an unyielding pace.

“Something the matter?” Kolivan asked, nose sniffing, eyes searching Shiro’s, expression twisting into suspicion. Lotor was sniffing too, frowning.

“Leave now.” Shiro spoke calmly but inside him was an engine of aggression gearing up for a fight. He wouldn’t say it a third time. If Kolivan didn’t move, Shiro would kill him.

Kolivan exchanged a glance with Lotor, both of their bodies tense with unease, but then Kolivan was finally stepping away, moving sideways to the door without exposing his back to Shiro. “I’ll go find someone to mention this to.”

“I don’t think it’s anything I can’t handle,” Lotor replied, studying Shiro with all the intensity the prince usually reserved for laying careful plans. He shot a look over Shiro’s shoulder and slowly blinked his eyes at Kolivan, Galra for, _“Don’t worry about me,”_ then said, “Maybe just keep an eye on things. It might be a delicate situation that the Paladins of Voltron would fumble if they were to respond with their full enthusiasm.”

Kolivan left, and Shiro moved around the table into Lotor’s personal space, following closely when Lotor calmly stepped away.

“What’s wrong with your eyes, Shiro?”

“Nothing.”

“Something’s wrong. I’ve never seen human retinas reflect so much red through the pupil. Where were you just now?” He was still backing away, putting space and furniture between them. Shiro followed him lazily, enjoying the game so much that he felt a grin coming on. Lotor was still sniffing the air like he noticed something off but couldn’t for the life of him place it. He hadn’t yet noticed the straining tent in Shiro’s pants, too focused on looking into Shiro’s eyes.

“I was on one of the observation decks, looking into space. It was so beautiful that I had to come find you.”

Lotor’s frown deepened, Shiro’s answer clearly not ringing any bells. Shiro found the expression incredibly endearing. Lotor was incredibly good looking.

“Have you met anyone that shouldn’t be in the Castle? Any Galra, or perhaps a Feloricussian?” At Shiro’s confused look, he explained, “Short, red, lots of protrusions, like they’re trying to blend into ocean coral? They enjoy messing with people’s minds.”

Shiro shook his head indulgently, smiling once more, and in a quick step, cut off Lotor’s intended trajectory towards the door. It appeared that Lotor had changed his mind about being able to handle Shiro on his own. There was something very thrilling about his mate — Galra-strong, a head taller than him, incredibly skilled in combat — suddenly realizing that Shiro might overpower him after all.

Escape route cut off, Lotor started backing away instead, hands now lighting upon various objects scattered across the counters, looking for a good weapon.

Kolivan would be reaching an observation room soon and looking in through the cameras. Shiro knew he must not be caught in the middle of a fight when that happened. He leaped, cleared a counter, and countered Lotor’s swing with a precision punch to his right shoulder that left Lotor’s dominant arm numb, an exploitable weakness he had observed among Galra before.

Lotor stumbled, rebalanced, dodged another punch, and swung, but Shiro had feigned the punch and easily sidestepped, sweeping out a leg and bringing Lotor crashing to the floor.

He was on Lotor immediately, pulling his hair, sniffing his nape. He couldn’t get enough of that scent. That cedar-like soap mixed intoxicatingly with his natural male odor, prime and healthy and ripe for mating. He licked into the soft valley between jawline and hard neck muscles, tasting the skin, then nipped softly at the skin there. It was the first of many marks he would leave on his mate.

Below him, Lotor stopped struggling at the bite, and Shiro stroked Lotor’s waist in praise, like he would a large feline pet, letting his palm press heavily to convey his affection.

“You were looking into space…” Lotor murmured as Shiro’s hands traveled blindly over Lotor’s torso, looking for clasps and closures and undoing any he encountered. “Was there a red moon?”

Shiro nuzzled the outline of a shoulder blade. “There was, actually. How did you know?”

Lotor didn’t reply, though Shiro heard him let out what was possibly a minute sigh. Trying to get a response, Shiro rubbed his crotch against the swell of Lotor’s well-shaped ass, groaning.

“It’s here,” Lotor said and guided one of Shiro’s searching hands under his arm, where the buckle holding his outfit’s breastplate had been concealed.

Unlatching it, Shiro came up on his knees and let Lotor rise.

Lotor gave him an aggrieved look over his shoulder as he pushed himself off the floor. “Are you quite sure you’re in the right room? Kolivan’s teammate, Hizra, is… She’s much better suited for this. So is Alfal. Both are very young and pretty.”

Shiro had already managed to spin Lotor around and was trying to find how to undo his belt. He laughed, dipping down to bite the underside of Lotor’s jaw again, hard. “I’ve already found the prettiest mate aboard the ship.”

“Yes, but I’m not exactly…” Lotor helped Shiro unbuckle his cape and tossed the garment away, both of them kneeling front to front. “Are you quite sure you’d rather have me than any of the other occupants aboard the castle?”

Shiro grabbed a handful of Lotor’s ass in each hand and pulled him close to rub their crotches together. “Are you going to try to escape?”

Lotor sighed.

“No, I’m not an idiot.” He looked up to where the observation camera was. “Kolivan, if you haven’t already, stand down. He’s harmless.” Then, grumbling quietly, he added, “If a bit determined to humiliate me.”

Shiro found how to wrestle Lotor out of his flightsuit and bit a newly exposed collarbone so hard that Lotor hissed. He pushed and pulled the flightsuit down to Lotor’s knees, exposing a dusty violet cock that looked surprisingly human, at least while it was still soft. “I’m not trying to humiliate you. You’re doing so good for me, quietly submitting.”

Lotor struggled to wrestle a sudden wry smile back down into nothing, then glanced at the camera again and frowned.

Shiro noticed the glance and immediately saw red. He shoved Lotor down to the floor and growled, hand tangled in long white hair and grinding Lotor’s temple cruelly into the floor.

“Are you going to keep thinking of Kolivan the entire time?”

Lotor grimaced, but raised his hands in a gesture of surrender instead of struggling.

“No, I can assure you I have no such interest in Kolivan.” Then, wincing as Shiro pushed his head harder for good measure, added, “Or anyone else for that matter. You have my full attention right now.”

Placated, Shiro eased up, and, after studying Lotor’s acquiescent body language for a moment, let go. Lotor lifted his head gingerly, rubbing the side of his face.

After some thought, Shiro left the rest of Lotor’s flight suit and his boots on. His mate could benefit from the knee protection these afforded him. Lotor was still not moving to escape. Instead, he had stretched out on the floor, folded his arms under him, and was now peering curiously back at Shiro. Straddling the backs of Lotor’s thighs, Shiro went about pulling off his shirts and opening his fly. His eyes roamed up the muscles and dimples of Lotor's lower back, over the curve of his arched spine — the shell of his ear, the locks of his hair — before finally turning his attention to the round mounds of ass bracketed deliciously by Shiro’s own thighs.

He growled, again getting handfuls of that soft ass, now naked and vulnerable, and kneaded it.

“You really want… specifically me?”

Lotor, despite his docile behavior, still looked confused, his narrowed eyes flickering between his own ass, Shiro’s blood-heavy cock, and Shiro’s face. “It might not work the way you expect.”

“Afraid you won’t be able to fit it?”

For the first time, Lotor let slip signs of embarrassment. His cheeks flushed and he turned away, looking forward, his hand coming up so he could rest his chin in its palm. “No, I’m sure where there’s a will there’s a way. But if you could try to be gentle, I’d appreciate it. I’m not exactly built for this.”

Precome bubbled from Shiro’s slit, dripping onto Lotor’s ass-cheek and then rolling, slow and viscous, into the crack. Shiro dug his nails into Lotor’s skin as his eyes followed the trail, feeling Lotor’s muscles shift under his palms. He pulled Lotor’s ass-cheeks wide to follow the progress of the drop.

More precome dribbled and fell, oddly grey and unfamiliar.

His eyes finally focused on his own dick, noticing how much redder it seemed, oddly swollen and bluer at the base. He’d never seen anything like that before. The whole thing also looked much bigger than he remembered, and that weird precome just kept coming in obscene amounts. It had been a while since he’d had the time and energy to bother with his dick, but he couldn’t think of why it would change so much.

Lotor sighed. “The anticipation is killing me. Can you — ” He glared over his shoulder again, that embarrassed flush still present.

Shiro didn’t need to be told twice.

He leaned forward and rubbed himself on Lotor, enjoying the heat of his mate’s ass cupping him soundly. Then he stopped and stood, angrily wrestling off the pants that were chafing him.

Reaching down, he pulled Lotor’s ass up in the air, Lotor making an indignant noise as he threw out his hands. Shiro laughed, basking in having Lotor at his mercy, and kneeled down, angling his cock to the hole he’d seen a hint of, rubbing his own leaking dick against it. Lotor kept stiff, watching silently through narrowed eyes over his shoulder, hair falling into his handsome face.

Shiro was so lucky.

Then he held the cockhead steady and pushed in. Lotor yelled out, spreading his hands wide on the floor.

“Wait, _wait!_ ”

Shiro didn’t want to wait much, his mind blown by the tight grip of the rim around the very tip of his glans, but he stopped, listening to Lotor force himself to breathe deeply.

“Alright, you can — _wait!_ Alright... _no!_ Wait.”

Shiro’s heart was racing, Lotor’s hole clenching around the most sensitive part of him, rim pulsing just under the very head, feeling like it was trying to suck Shiro in. Lotor had his eyes screwed up shut and Shiro watched him hungrily, proud of how good his mate was being for him, trying to take Shiro’s huge dick.

“Hold — hold still. Let me.”

Shiro groaned, feeling Lotor start to slowly slide onto him. Then Lotor pulled away, hissing, and Shiro’s dick was pushed out by the clenching hole. Shiro grabbed it, aligned it again, and Lotor pushed on once more, bobbing back and forth slightly as he went. Shiro watched as, little by little, he slid back inside and then sunk deeper, Lotor squeezing him from all sides and Shiro’s leaking dick easing the way. And then, with a groan, Lotor sank onto the very last inch, shaking as he pushed his ass tight against Shiro’s pelvis.

Shiro chuckled breathlessly, delighted, and sent his hands weaving across Lotor’s belly, feeling the wonderfully smooth skin there and pulling Lotor towards him off of all fours until Lotor’s back was flush against his front.

“You feel delicious.”

Lotor turned to him with a clever spark in his eye. “You know, when I joined team Voltron to help, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

Shiro thrust his hips hard, and Lotor shut up, wincing.

Then Shiro sank his teeth into Lotor’s neck and began marking him up properly as his hips wound up from a slow shallow pace to something more brisk and punishing.

Lotor moaned without restraint. He writhed in Shiro’s arms, trying to wriggle away from the roll of Shiro’s hips at first. His hand fisted in Shiro’s hair, he ineffectually tried to pull Shiro’s mouth away from all the many bruises and bleeding bites that Shiro was leaving everywhere from Lotor’s delicately shaped ear to his muscular shoulder. Then he settled down and kept still, tightly arching his back now and then, letting his knees slide a little farther apart.

Shiro broke off from a bite to pant in Lotor’s ear when he felt a heat at the base of his cock. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re warming up to me.”

“It — ” Lotor moaned and writhed again as Shiro’s dick seemed to pull out with a surprising pop of pressure this time, and then popped again on every next thrust. “It surprisingly has its charms.”

It was getting difficult to thrust, and then, suddenly, impossible. Shiro stopped, and, with a great deal of pressure, pushed his dick back in all the way, making Lotor yelp. Once there, he rolled his hips, gasping at how amazing everything felt, and —

Stars of white shattered across his vision, breaking opalescent on the edges.

Shiro staggered around on his knees, suddenly weak with pleasure, the sensation so different from an orgasm. There were none of the usual rhythmic contractions of releasing ecstasy but rather a general sense of euphoria that, after a few moments of dizziness, finally conquered him. He careened to the side and fell, pulling Lotor with him.

They lay on their sides. Shiro dazedly realized that he’d left no marks on the side of Lotor’s neck now exposed to him and set to work — laving and biting and sucking — until Lotor’s skin was sufficiently discolored and wet.

Then Shiro buried his nose in Lotor’s hair and gave up all effort.

He realized that, through the haze, he could feel Lotor still clenching around him. Something was still moving rhythmically. After a while, Shiro lifted his head, looking first at the side of Lotor’s red-tinged face, and then down below Lotor’s legs, where Lotor was rubbing his cockhead lightly.

“I didn’t come. I wasn’t sure if you’d be irritated if I did it without permission.” After a small pause, Lotor muttered, “I was surprised I even wanted to.”

It struck Shiro that despite all the pleasure pumping like blood through him, his head suddenly felt very clear. And as he looked down on Lotor’s exquisite profile, Shiro realized that although Lotor was certainly one of the most handsome people on board, he wasn’t entirely sure _why_ he was naked on the floor with his dick literally trapped inside the prince.

As a general rule of thumb, Shiro was more the type to take things slow than barge in and demand sex in a public space.

“Does a red moon mean something to you? What happened to me?” he asked, not sure if that was the best place to start.

Lotor looked up from the spot of floor he’d been gazing at with a soft, far off look. “The druids didn’t tell you?”

Shiro shook his head, going through the events that had transpired since he’d seen the moon and growing steadily more mortified. What the hell had he been thinking?

“The red moon was a symbol of fertility in our culture,” Lotor explained, “before Daibazaal was destroyed. But it’s not the only moon in the Universe that glows red, so while other symbols have faded away over the millennia, the red moon has persisted.”

Lotor said this calmly, as if merely explaining a fact relevant to taking down Zarkon’s empire or fortifying supply lines. As if Shiro hadn’t frightened, attacked, and mounted him all in the past hour.

“The changes the druids made to you were… a sort of acknowledgement of your superior strength and prowess. Upon seeing a red moon, you would be overcome with rut and not stop until you had successfully reproduced with the best Galra mate available, so as to make lots of strong Galra offspring. It’s a very widespread practice, and it’s something of an honor to be chosen as a mate in such circumstances. To avoid provoking the pursuing warrior to violence, the mate in question submits to the male with only a token chase and minimal fuss.”

They stared at each other.

Then Shiro glanced down to where Lotor was still stroking himself, realizing now what Lotor had meant about not coming without permission. Perhaps Shiro _would_ have gotten angry about it if he were still out of his mind.

Was this Lotor’s way of telling him that what happened wasn’t rape? Or him simply listing out the facts while personally deeply wounded by what had happened? Were all the chosen mates secretly upset despite the “honor” of it all? Or were Galra culture and instincts accommodating of this ritual?

“Should — should I offer to help, or…”

Lotor raised his brows slightly, then looked down at himself, moving his hand away, not lifting his eyes to meet Shiro’s gaze again.

Swallowing, unsure if there was any way Lotor had misunderstood him, Shiro wrapped his own hand around the head, massaging it, pressing his thumb into the slit, all the while watching Lotor’s face, the half-closed eyes, the soft panting, the brief swallows, peppered with minute, almost imperceptible lip-bites. Shiro still felt Lotor regularly squeezing hard around what must have been Shiro’s knot. He focused on the contractions, squeezing Lotor harder as they picked up in intensity.

Lotor came quietly, shaking against Shiro’s chest with his eyes closed and his lower lip caught in the grip of a sharp fang. Then he melted like butter in Shiro’s arms, feet sliding back to twine their legs together.

Lotor sighed.

Shiro idly played with Lotor’s black come that coated his fingers. Then he remembered something that seized his chest with cold.

“If it’s an honor,” Shiro paused, afraid to ask, “why did you say I was humiliating you?”

Lotor flushed from his chiseled cheekbones to his hairline, eyes suddenly wide.

“Typically,” Lotor said and ran his tongue over his upper lip, “one doesn’t hop on and mount the nearest _male_ or member of _royalty_.”

Their eyes met for a brief moment. Then Lotor’s gaze slipped away again, and Shiro realized how uncommon it was for Lotor to ever break or avoid eye contact.

“That defeats the whole purpose of it being a fertility ritual. That’s why I tried suggesting,” Lotor forced a cough, “Hizra? Alfal? They’ve both got the right, ah… equipment.”

Shiro blushed too, catching on, then hurried to explain, chuckling at the revelation. “If they wanted me to reproduce, they should have spent some time making me more attracted to females. Otherwise, the whole thing’s a bust.”

Lotor finally made and held eye contact, his flush subduing some, eyes studying Shiro’s face with a great deal of interest. His mouth parted, and he looked on the brink of saying _“Is that so?”_ but then stayed quiet, eventually looking away and laying his head down in his bent arm.

After a moment, Lotor pressed back tighter into Shiro’s chest, one of his feet arching to hook around Shiro’s calf, and Shiro was left to wonder if there was a chance Lotor was happier to hear this than he could put into words.


End file.
